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[[Category:New Reviews|Literary Fiction]] __NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Collected Works of A J FikryMatthew Tree|authortitle=Gabrielle ZevinWe'll Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=General Literary Fiction|summary=A J Fikry is not having a good time. He's lost Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his wife to a car crashfather, and he's not making that much money. The book store he runs, stuck out on a limb on a quiet island community, is too remote to turn a profit year-round, drunk and he has just dismissed the latest publisher's rep to turn up chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of his door, partly because her previous counterpart, an inconsequential part of A J's life when artistic passions all is said failed miserably and done, who had died and he didn't know about itendless crises of self confidence. But So Tim applied himself to his bad time is about to get a lot worsestudies, as the one thing he owns worth the most – a rare book, more valuable cultivated his abilities rather than his house, his business, anything – is about to vanishdaydreams and set himself high but achievable ambitions. Which bizarrely will cause several major changes to his one-person household…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1408704617</amazonuk>B0CVFXPGP8

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0C47LV1PC|title=The Last Boat HomeFragility|author=Dea BrovigMosby Woods

|summary=Then: On the farm above Can you make a remote Norwegian hamlet''Yo birthing person'' joke? And if you could, in 1976, schoolgirl Else is waiting for her mother to return through the wind and question should you make it? Or is the snow. She question if you did, would it land? The catch is also clutching at that the kitchen table as the contractions worsenanswer for both could well be.... no.

Now: fast forward to 2009. Else now lives in the town the hamlet has grown into, on the back of oil money. Her daughter has a daughter of her own, but still spends many a night not coming home. ''She must have met someoneFragility'' is set as the eleven-year-old granddaughter says matter-city of-factly. Else has made a life for herselfPortland, running a spaOregon, looking after her daughter and her granddaughter. A quiet life, but not such a bad one.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091954290</amazonuk>cautiously begins to emerge from the restrictions imposed during the covid pandemic

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The Beggar and the HareMosby Woods|authortitle=Tuomas KyroA Whirly Man Loses His Turn|rating=4.5

|summary=Our hero, Vatanescu, is a fish out of water. HeThe West isn's a father without his family, a man without a home, a possibility without a chancet the dominant force it once was. He's being transported across Europe by a criminal people-smuggler, who Nobody in the West is also packing Vatanescu's sister off quite sure how to the cosmetic surgeon then the prostitute trade. Our hero mend this or even if mending it is destined to sit in discomfort, sleet and in hateful gazes of others as a beggar on the streets best course of Helsinkiaction. But at the same time impossibilities Governments are amassing – one of which splits Vatanescu from his minder/mentorflailing. A war here, and leaves him on the run with a fistful of useless currencypush for climate action there. A further impossibility gifts him a friendlyfeeling that nobody is in actual charge. Imagine then, warm companion – there was a rabbit being chased by local youths jumps into man with precognition. Imagine the sanctuary of his arms, and becomes strategic advantage in this asset; a welcome source man who can tell you what will happen given any set of focuscircumstances. From then on many more jumps will That man would be made from one impossibility to anothervaluable, as right? Perhaps the life of most valuable asset in history. Imagine then, that this man loses this illegal immigrant begins ability. What would governments do to resonate across his adopted homeland…get it back?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1780721641</amazonuk>B0C9SNG8R1

 {{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=0571379559|title=The Blazing WorldHouse of Broken Bricks|author=Siri HustvedtFiona Williams|rating=4.5

|summary='All intellectual and artistic endeavours…fare better in 'The House of Broken Bricks'' is the mind story of four people. Tess Hembry's roots are in Jamaica: temperamentally she might be happier there, but instead, she lives in the crowd when house on the crowd knows that somewhere behind riverbank, built of broken bricks. Insubstantial as it might look, it's stood the great work or the great spoof it can locate a cock passage of time, storms and a pair of ballsfloods.' Thus we are introduced Her husband, Richard, struggles to grow his vegetables, to complete the unforgettable Harriet Burden – largerdelivery rounds -thanand to bring in sufficient money. They have twin boys -lifeSonny and Max, six-foot-tall amazon artist – and to some of the novelrainbow twins. Sonny's colouring reflects his mother's essential elements: musing on what makes intellectual products successful in a postmodern marketplace, feminist resentment of the overvaluing of male achievementJamaican heritage. Max takes after his father. People don't believe that they're related, much less twins and there's an unapologetic, playful boldness assumption when Max is out with languagehis mother that she's his nanny.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1444779648</amazonuk>

{{newreview|title=Clever Girl|author=Tessa Hadley|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Stella grows The follow-up with her single mother in Bristol in to the 1960s; her father excellent ''Ithaca'' picks up a few months after where we left when she was a baby, but her mother has cultivated the convenient myth that he diedoff. In the stand-alone first chapterpalace of Odysseus, Stella recounts a disturbing incident of domestic violence that affected with delicate care Queen Penelope continues to rule without her Aunt Andyhusband, who sailed to war at Troy and then by divine intervention never returned home. Sordid snippets from As ever she remains surrounded by suitors vying for the ensuing court case stay with Stella over throne of the Western Isles. Having survived – politically and physical – the years; 'Innocent-seeming fragments would get in past my defences…then stick chaotic storm that Clytemnestra brought to my imagination like tar.Ithaca' Even sos shores, Queen Penelope is on the novel brink of a fragile peace. One that follows is about shatters however with the way in which we engage with memory – facts that linger versus those wereturn of Orestes, King of Mycenae, deliberately or subconsciouslyand his sister Elektra, choose not to tellseeking refuge.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099570521</amazonuk>0356516075

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=All That is Solid Melts into AirKay Chronister|authortitle=Darragh McKeonDesert Creatures|rating=4|genre=Literary Dystopian Fiction|summary=Moscow, 1986With a world that is becoming increasingly inhospitable for humanity, and a ninepost-year old piano prodigy apocalyptic fiction can become an almost masochistic thrill. Whether it is trapped in a subway station by bulliesrobotic takeover, who carefully break one a world devoid of his little fingers. Rehearsal cancelledwater or a nuclear holocaust, the boy finds his favourite aunt, who takes him this genre is a way for humans to treatment only to discover her excathartically experience their most existential fears. ''Desert Creatures'' by Kay Chronister is a new work of post-husband apocalyptic fiction that aligns many of the doctor involvedfears that exist for humanity today. Many miles away It is a slightly older young man is off on his first hunting trip with the men of the village, only shocking novel that still manages to find diseased cows, and the grouse they seek sickly and weirdly uncoordinated. What has affected them, and will of course affect all the characters in the book, is the nuclear disaster in the plant at Chernobylhope.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0670922706</amazonuk>1803364998

 {{newreviewfrontpage|titleisbn=The Black Snow1803363002|author=Paul LynchEric LaRocca|title= The Trees Grew Because I Bled There|rating=3.5|genre=Literary FictionHorror|summary=Barnabas Kane returned Horror taps into something primeval within us. It is used as a way to his birthplace in Ireland with his family with the goal of setting up his own farm reflect our darkest emotions and how we as humans react and raising his son in process them. Most horror fiction feature a ''Big Bad'', whether that is a better setting than New York. With his farm of home invader, a decent size and monster or a good herd of cattle all seems well with Kane until out ploughing one day he ghost, it usually something tangible and his farm hand Matthew Peoples spot smoke in , by the sky from end of the direction of his byrestory, beatable. Eric LaRocca's ''The fire marks Trees Grew Because I Bled There'' is not like that. It is a collection of short stories more interested in the start horrors of a sometimes bleak downward spiral illness, grief and humiliation. Horrors that linger and Kane is forced are harder to rely on the kindness of his neighbours who still see him as an outsiderdefeat than any ''Big Bad''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782062041</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Truman CapoteMadelaine Lucas|title=Breakfast at Tiffany's Thirst for Salt

|summary=Holly Golightly. Who doesn't know her? Whether in the pages of ''Breakfast at Tiffany's'', the short novel by Truman Capote or capture on film by Audrey HepburnLove, sheI's an American icon. A young country girl becomes a New York socialited read, trading on amusement value was supposed to make be a life paid light and weightless feeling, but I had always longed for by rich men who are titillated by her outrageous opinions and anecdotes. We gravity''want'' to know her. And the narrator ''wants'' to know her as much, if not more, than we do. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B00HX9UTSE</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Patrick Ness|title=The Crane Wife|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=''The Crane Wife'' ticks all my boxes. It's by Patrick Ness who is one of my favourite writers of Young Adult fiction. It has Told from a basis in myth and legend and still better in an ancient story new to me. It doesn't go on and on and Ariston for half retrospective view, a billion pagesyoung woman unravels the year-long relationship that once defined her. Best of allOverlaid with later wisdom, the author includes a shout-out for narrator relives the brilliant Decemberists. I agree affair with Ness: this is a band you should look upman twenty years her senior from its inception – the summer after finishing university – to its sorrowful end the summer after. A heavy reading schedule meant I didnSet against the backdrop of an isolated Australian coastal town 't get to it last 'Thirst for Salt'' details the 24-year when it was first published but now it-old narrator's out in paperback deepening relationship with her older lover, depicting its all-consuming nature, how it changed her perspective on both romantic and here I am. I wasn't disappointedfamilial relationships and how it altered her irrevocably. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857868748</amazonuk>0861546490

{{newreview|author=Jill Dawson|title=The Tell-Tale Heart|rating=4''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Being told that you have six months Of what it means to live concentrates the mind most wonderfully: fifty be human. Of what is no age to die, even if you have lived life to the full. Patrick's heart was giving up on him real and the Professor of American Studieswhat is artificial, philanderer and heavy drinker was at whether the head development of the list for a heart transplant. His other problems - entirely of his own making - faded into insignificance. Sixteen-year-old Drew Beamish died in a motorcycle accident in the village where he lived in rural Cambridgeshire and it will be his (still beating) heart which technology is transplanted into Patrick. The two, who had never met, would be permanently joinedexciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1444731068</amazonuk>191458564X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=The People in the PhotoJennifer Saint|authortitle=Helene GesternAtalanta|rating=4.5

|summary=Hélène Hivert works at the Museum of the History of the Postcard. It is a job she loves, as she finds delving into other people's lives 'most exciting'I was as worthy as any one of them. LuckilyI would get on board that ship, she is 'regularly sent collections to catalogue', and each time the 'moment of discovery' gives her a thrillI vowed. It may be 'addictive'I would take my place, but 'There is something very moving about the thought that not just two or three sources can be enough to build a picture of an entire life'. But what happens when the sources are a bit too close to home, when Hélène must play Holmes among in the artefacts name of her own family's past, pondering 'the silence of surfaces'? Well, goddess. It was for the professional detachment goes straight out the window, and what had been a genuine pleasure, tinged by wonder, now becomes an uncomfortable obsession.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908313544</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|title=The Atheist's Prayer|author=Amy R Biddle|rating=3.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=I don’t shy away from a book with a little edge, in fact [[:Category:Chuck Palahniuk|Chuck Palahniuk]] is one sake of my favourite authors and his books can be so sharp you can shave with themname, too. On the surface Atalanta''The Atheist’s Prayer'' would seem to be courting controversy; why else have such a provocative title? But, is it really that shocking? Nope. This is a story about how people deal with the modern world and what happens when dangerous ideals infect a vulnerable group.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1780995822</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|title=The Three Musketeers|author=Alexandre Dumas and Will Hobson (translator)|rating=4Princess.5|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Leaving his home to try and join the famous musketeers in Paris, young Gascon d'Artagnan encounters troubles on the way but quickly falls in with title characters Athos, Aramis and PorthosWarrior. Lover. Hero. Soon, the quartet are caught up in a diabolical plot of the wicked Cardinal Richelieu and his accomplice Milady de Winter - can they save the Queen's honour?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849907498</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Eric Lundgren|title=The Facades|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Sven and Molly Norberg live in Abandoned at birth for being born a daughter rather than a son, Atalanta is raised under the American mid-western town protective eye of Trudethe goddess Athemis and fashioned into a formidable huntress, one who longs for adventure. At least Sven still does; Molly has gone missing. Night after night Sven leaves KyleWhen the opportunity comes – to join the Argonauts, his teenage sona fierce band of warriors, home alone while he scours descendent from the Gods themselves – Atalanta seizes the streets, revisiting places that he chance to fight in Artemis' name and Molly wandered through together carve out her own legendary place in order to find herhistory. Meanwhile Trude has problems What follows is a whirlwind of its own challenges and the librarians are armed discovery and ready!through it, Atalanta must remember Artemis' fatal warning: that if she marries, it will be her undoing.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0715647679</amazonuk>1472292154

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Romy AshAmanthi Harris|title=FlounderingBeautiful Place

|summary=Loretta collects Padma, a young Sri Lankan, has returned to the Villa Hibiscus on the southern coast of her home country. This is a place she spent her boys Jordy and Tom from school formative years. It is not a place she was born into, but the one she thinks of as if it's home. How she came to be at the most normal thing in the worldVilla, but how it's not; not for them anyway. Jordy became her home, and Tom the machinations that have been living with their grandparents after being abandoned by this woman who refuses to be called flowed through her life ever since she first arrived there provide the ''score'Mum'for this gentle and yet subtly violent novel. As they get further from their eastern Australian home it remains an adventure for Tom but Jordy Padma's more sullen. Once they arrive at their ultimate destination - present fails to escape her past and much like the musical score of a ramshackle caravan park - Tom begins to understand why but not before both lads realise film, that strand weaves its way through everything that their worries are just beginninghappens at the Villa.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1921922087</amazonuk>1784631930

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Audrey Magee178563335X|title=The UndertakingSea Defences|author=Hilary Taylor

|summary=Peter Faber has decided When we first meet Rachel Bird she's a trainee vicar, sitting in on a PCC meeting and wondering why they're held when you need to become part of pick the new Nazi initiativechildren up. He will marry Katharina SpinellHer husband, Christopher, collects six-year-old Hannah and her elder brother, Jamie, whilst Rachel holds a woman he sobbing parishioner. Thelma's daughter-in-law won't even meet till their honeymoonlet her see her grandson. In return heHolthorpe, on the Norfolk coast, is a lovely place, but Rachel is struggling to develop a real bond with the parish - and she'll receive honeymoon leave from s in awe of the Russian front while vicar, Gail, but then she will secure a widow's pension should anything happen to him, hopefully providing been doing the Reich with one or two job for more Aryan babies on the waythan thirty years. Peter may not be Rachel and Christopher hoped that a walk on the sonbeach would do them some good -in-law Katharina's parents envisaged it was stormy but their disappointment is blunted by their luxurious lifestyle under the patronage of the sinister Dr Weinartit was probably what they needed. However, this is still wartime and Peter must eventually return to Russia and whatever fate awaits himAnd then Hannah went missing.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1782391029</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Pamela Erens1398515388|title=The VirginsBoy and the Dog|author=Seishu Hase and Alison Watts (translator)

|genre=Literary General Fiction|summary=Set First of all, it was the earthquake, deep in 1979-80 the ocean floor, which created the tsunami and this, in an elite boarding school on turn, caused the east coast of the USA ''nuclear meltdown. The result was complete and utter devastation. The Virgins'' tells deaths were uncountable, and the story loss of two young peoplelivelihoods was widespread. The story is mainly narrated by Bruce Bennettfact that many pets were separated from their owners came far down the list of priorities but - six months after the tsunami -Jones who would have liked to have Kazumasa Nakagaki discovered a dog outside a close relationship with Aviva Rossner but her unlikely choice was Seung Jungconvenience store. TheyHe wasn're not shy about flaunting their relationship and itt a dog person but the convenience store owner's the talk of Auburn Academy, but whilst the watchers believe comment that the relationship is one of unalloyed passion, the truth is rather different he would call Public Health prompted Kazumasa to open his car door and Tamon the couple are set on a path to an inevitable tragedydog jumped in.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848549873</amazonuk>

{{newreviewFrontpage|titleisbn=Crumbs0989715337|authortitle=Miha Mazzini|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=We are in a hell of man's own making – a town that is basically one huge foundry, whose men go from working there to a bar then to (someone's) bed in three eight hour shifts, or so it seems. Egon isn't one of those men, or isn't any more, for he works at other things than the foundry – namely churning out trashy low-brow fiction, and a lot of wheeling and a lot more dealing. He still keeps his shift in at the bar and in people's beds, though, all the while looking out for number one. He has several friendships Papa on the go, and several sexual partners at the same time, yet drinks so much it's hard to say he exactly cherishes himself above all – if anything he doesn't care that much about anyone. He certainly cares for something however – his beloved stash of Cartier cologne has run out, and he'll as like as not do anything for more…|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1908754397</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewMoon|author=Amy Grace Loyd|title=The Affairs of OthersMarco North

|summary=Five years ago Celia Cassill's husband died leaving her the owner of the Brooklyn apartment block in which she lives. She's fastidious as to whom she lets and is understandably hesitant when George (one of her longstanding tenants) wants to temporarily sub-let to a friend while he goes abroad. Celia eventually agrees and so in moves Hope, a lady who has just left her husband and for whom life is as complicated as she makes Celia's.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297871188</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Donal Ryan|title=The Thing About December|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Johnsey Cunliffe was always a nice boy, but a little slow - the one that the other kids picked on and it's much the same in adult life. If you were to ask Johnsey he'd say that he was a gom. Even if you've never met the word before you know what it means. It wasn't too bad whilst Daddy was there - he was a man with a certain presence and even when it was just Johnsey and his mother he Some frogs had some support. But after her death Johnsey was dependant on small kindnesses from other people and at gotten into the mercy of those for whom he was an easy target. His life might have continued in this rather unsatisfactory way for some time but for the collision of two events.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781620091</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=James McBride|title=The Good Lord Bird|rating=4|genre=Historical Fiction|summary=Henry 'The Onion' Shackleford lives as Henrietta (or just plain Onion) until he's 17 due to a misunderstanding that may prove too dangerous for him to correct. The reason is that the person under this misapprehension is the fiercely well-meaning slavery abolitionist (with the emphasis on the 'fiercely') John Brown. As Onion accompanies him on his quest to free every slave they encounter, he discovers that Brown's philanthropy only stretches so far. Meanwhile it's that time of the 19th century when a shadow spreads over America, one that will cause a historic scar almost as great as that of slavery but Brown is oblivious to this. He doesn't; want to start a civil war, just an armed slave revolt.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1594486344</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Ashley Hay|title=The Railwayman's Wife|rating=5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Mackenzie and Anikka Lachlan have all they could possibly want. They live 'Walter stood waist-deep in Thirroul, a close New South Wales coastal community, are parents to a lovely little girl and now, in 1948the fragrant water, Mac has come through the war years unscathed due to naked except for his job at home on the railwaysbeaten leather hat. However in a single moment all Long strands of their luck changes and Anikka becomes a widoweggs wove around him, another grieving shadowsticky gray pearls with tadpoles inside them. Alongside her neighbours (a war poet who can't write now he's home Two of the dogs leaned over the opening and barked down at the local GP who experienced hell while not being able to bring anyone back from its grasp) Anikka must learn strange noise of the most difficult lesson: how to go on livingbuckets as he filled them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1743318014</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Amy Tan|title=How is that for an opening? The Joy Luck Club|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary= The Joy Luck Club was Jing Mei's mother's idea. After arriving style of this novel in the US form of interconnected short stories goes from China in 1949 she invited three other Chinese immigrant ladies succinct and laconic to join. The four would meet to play Mah Jong wistful and feast musing, turning on morsels that none of them could really afforda sixpence. Once played outAnd author Marco North, they shared stories of who has the land they'd left. The evenings evolve over time; the food becomes affordable, men join the discussions but the core remains the same. Four Chinese mothers living a new life while sharing moments enjoyed and regretted, discussing their children and parents and telling stories most wonderful turn of wisdomphrase, happiness and, sometimes, intense painstarts as he means to go on.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>B0031Y9DPU</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Sam ByersDaisy Hildyard|title=IdiopathyEmergency

|summary=Katherine no longer seeks or expects to be happy. SheThe summary of this book doesn's stuck in a place and a job she hates and her relationship with Daniel broke up over a year ago. Since then she's had sexual encounters with a few men but her motivations have been confusing and disturbing - not least t come close to Katherine. She has a vicious wit (actually, calling it ''wit'' is perhaps stretching the point a little...) which repels the people she'd like to attract and attracts the people she'd prefer to repel. Daniel explaining what is done with a new girlfriend (well, there was a ''slight'' overlap) but he's not certain that he loves Angelica. He's in a difficult situation: not telling her that he loves her becomes tantamount to telling her that he doesn't love her and as a result he has to tell her that he loves her just to keep on the levelpremise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0007412088</amazonuk>1913097811}}

{{newreviewFrontpage |author=Sathnam SangheraSally Oliver |title=Marriage MaterialThe Weight of Loss |rating=4 |genre=Literary Fiction |summary= Marianne is grieving. Traumatised after the death of her sister, she awakes to find strange, thick black hairs sprouting from the bones of her spine which steadily increase in size and volume. Her GP, diagnosing the odd phenomenon as a physical reaction to her grief, recommends she go to stay at Nede, an experimental new treatment centre in Wales. Yet something strange is happening to Marianne and the other patients at Nede: a metamorphosis of a kind. As Marianne's memories threaten to overwhelm her, Nede offers her release from this cycle of memory and pain—but only at a terrible price: that of identity itself.|isbn= 086154112X }} {{Frontpage|author=Natalia Garcia Freire|title=This World Does Not Belong To Us

|summary=On Early comments on this debut novel from Ecuadorian writer Natalia García Freire include Tremendous, a delight. I will agree with the morning after his fatherfirst – tremendous is no understatement – but 's funeral Arjan Banga was surprised to see his mother opening up a delight' is perhaps using the family shop. She was expression in her sixties, recovering from cancer and besides, Bains Stores wasna way I't exactly thrivingm not familiar with. You could even be forgiven for wondering if it was ''open'', with the advert for a bar of chocolate discontinued in 1994 having pride I have to confess my ignorance of place in the window and the security shutter stuck at a quarter openSpanish-language literary tradition so forgive my generalisation here. Much as he might wish otherwise Arjan has no choice but to stay From the little I have read (in Wolverhampton to help his mothertranslation, leaving his job as a graphic designer and his girlfriend, Freya, in limbo. They were supposed I don't read Spanish) there does seem to be getting married in December, but that looked increasingly unlikelya tendency towards the fantastical – the mystical realism.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0434021903</amazonuk>0861541901

 {{newreview|title=Kerrigan in Copenhagen|author=Thomas E Kennedy|rating=2.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=Terrence Einhorn Kerrigan is an Irish-Danish American living in Copenhagen. He is 'a full-time writer and translator', who 'thinks of himself as a failed poet, which is a less complicated concept than a failed human being'. His newest writing assignment, however, is to 'select a sampling of one hundred of the best, the most historic, the most congenial of Copenhagen's 1,525 serving houses and write them up for one of a one-hundred-volume travel guide: ''The Great Bars of the Western World'''. Kerrigan, though, 'does not wish the book to be written. He wants only to research it. Forever' - and preferably in the company of his green-eyed Associate, Annelise.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408841940</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Lois WaldenJennifer Saint|title=AfterworldElektra

|summary=The Duvalier family owe their wealth to sugar cane although their gratitude is shown 'Elektra' by Jennifer Saint tells the story of three women who live in varying degrees and various waysthe heavily male dominated world of Ancient Greece. From the patriarch William (who never recovered from being hit by a manhole cover) through his wife and childrenCassandra, down to TheodoreClytemnestra, and Elektra are all bit players in the lad who gained comfort (and a certain amount story of secrecy) from travel and on to their black servant Rheta B, each has had a lifethe Trojan War. Each also has a story to tell Yet Jennifer Saint shows us that often the silent women have the most compelling stories and, whether alive or in Afterworld, they're going to tell itthe most extreme furies.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1908129859</amazonuk>1472273915

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Kate Clanchy8409290103|title=Meeting the EnglishIf Only|author=Matthew Tree

|summary=Struan Robertson was just seventeenTwenty-one-year-old Malcolm Lowry had been sent abroad by his father, cotton-broker AO Lowry: he asked his accountant, Mr Patrick, but set to go ensure that the young man got on board the boat and thereafter Patrick was to Aberdeen to study dentistry, when his English teacher passed send him a short advertisementmonthly allowance. A literary giant needed Patrick sent the money regularly and a carercorrespondence - of sorts - sprang up between the two although we hear more about what Lowry has to say than Patrick. Why not take a gap year? Struan had never been It wasn't that Lowry senior didn't care for his son, it was that he didn't care to ‘’England’’ before and have him in this country where he would might be living in Hampstead. On the plus side he’d been working in a care home danger to earn money his wife and he could do the workother children. Soon - almost too soon - Struan The alcohol problem was obvious even before Patrick managed to get the main carer for Phillip Prysyoung man on his way.}}{{Frontpage|author=Antoine Laurain, rendered dumb Le Sonneur and paralysed by a massive stroke. His family couldn’t take care of him - the young Jane Aitken (very youngtranslator) third wife |title=Red is My Heart|rating=3.5|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=[[:Category:Antoine Laurain|Antoine Laurain]] books have always been black and white and read in my house. And so was this one, although I could have spelled that more accurately – this one was too busy with her painting, and is, black and white and red. His sonYes, Jakehe has an artistic collaborator on this piece, had other things - anything else - to do rather than be in his father’s presence. Juliet had never been her father’s favourite but she wasn’t ‘’exactly’’ stable when and I think it came 's possible to helpingsay not one page lacks the influence of some striking visual ideas.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0330535277</amazonuk>1913547183

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Michele ForbesB098FFFBH9|title=Ghost MothSnowcub|author=Graham Fulbright|rating=4.5

|summary=Belfast 1949: Katherine Fourteen-year-old Rachel is about to become engaged to fireman George Bedford when she meets Tom McKinley. Heher school's bright fun animal rights project leader and she and makes her feel more alive than dependable, boring George ever couldfriend are producing a competition entry to highlight the way in which human beings exploit the animal world. The weight She gets a great deal of the decision Katherine eventually makes will haunt support from her for family: father Pip Harrison, a lifetimelecturer at Imperial College, London, mother Kate and her twin, Nick. We fast forward to Belfast 1969 and as Kate runs the troubles family business, a toy shop called Cornucopia in Northern Ireland exacerbatePutney, as do the cracks in Katherinewhich is where we'll meet Rachel's marriage. In fact 20 years and four children later, they've become chasmsmain (if unsuspected) source of information: five soft toys.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0297870440</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jennifer JohnstonYancey Williams|title=A Sixpenny SongCrosshairs of the Devil|rating=34.5

|summary=Annie's father Award-winning crime writer Eddie Jablonski is dead. She's not particularly upset as it's a decade getting on in years and, despite his strenuous objections and thanks to his daughter, finds himself living - or so since they've had any contact. Dada (he preferred to be called 'Father') had wanted her to go into the family businessimprisoned, to make money. Shefrom Eddie'd wanted to go to Trinity College s point of view - in Dublin to read English Literatureroom 315 of the Garden of Eden nursing home, but instead she'd packed with only a suitcase and left trusty nursing aide, Jenkins, for London, where she still palatable company. Nothing is going to keep Eddie from his stock- working in a bookshop. Her mother died when she was young - Dada had sent the child off to boarding school and did trade of writing though, so here, for his readers, are his wanderings through his best to ensure that her motherlife's name was never referred to again - and it wasn't too long before he remarried. His death brought Annie back to Ireland and she found that the money had been left to wife number two (as he was confident that she would know how to look after it) but the house now belonged to Anniework.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1472209222</amazonuk>0986031658}} {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Alex Kovacs0008421714|title=The Currency of PaperMrs March|author=Virginia Feito

|summary=Maximilian Sacheverell Hollingsworth was - as The problem began just after the name might suggest - publication of aristocratic birth, George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to either be reading it or had broken off all contact with his family and in consequence found himself labouring for forty hours a week in a printing works in Dagenhamalready done so. He came upon Every day Mrs March went to the idea of planning out his entire life and local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the bread, ''but isn't this the first time he did in 's based a character on you?'' She mentioned that Johanna, the course of a single afternoon whilst enjoying a little illicit sick leave in a pub in Bloomsburyprincipal character had 'her mannerisms''. He Perhaps this would first become a counterfeiter not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - on ''a massive scale - and then a sculptorweak, filmmakerplain, collector of artefactsdetestable, sound artist and mystic. Circumstances would also turn him into a reclusepathetic, except on certain well-ordered occasionsunloved, most of which would occur - somewhat to his initial surprise - later in his lifeunloveable wretch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1564788571</amazonuk>''